The Legend of Zelda is regularly considered one of the highest quality franchises in the medium. Time and time again, Nintendo uses Zelda as a means to reinvent how we understand gaming. The original Zelda introduced save states, Ocarina of Time set the foundation that all modern 3D action-adventure games followed, and Breath of the Wild presented an open world that went beyond the surface-level “open” worlds the genre had been plagued by.

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As great as The Legend of Zelda is, however, the series has been outdone by imitators in the past. More often than not, these so=called “Zelda clones” are dead on arrival, but a few take the basic Zelda formula and add a spin that Nintendo never could, or simply won’t.

10 Better: Alundra

At a time when Nintendo was embracing 3D and The Legend of Zelda’s next 2D entry wouldn’t see release until into the 21st century, there was a 2D action-adventure void in need of filling and no Zelda to fill it. The first game developed by Matrix Software, it’s almost astounding just how good Alundra is.

With better combat than Zelda usually has and a much better story, Alundra was the mature Legend of Zelda fans had been clamoring for. To this day, it holds up as one of the best action RPGs on the PlayStation. Anyone who likes Zelda needs to play Alundra.

9 So Much Worse: Darksiders

Darksiders was an admirable attempt at trying to capture the magic of 3D Zelda, but ripping off The Legend of Zelda wholesale does this game more harm than good, especially considering how well-defined the core identity is. Dungeoneering and puzzle solving just doesn’t fit Darksiders, especially since the combat distinctly doesn’t ape Zelda.

And for the worst at that. The second game is a bit better, but Darksiders really is just discount Zelda at the end of the day. It’s an interesting franchise with some very cool lore, but the first game is too derivative, the second game is too uninspired, and the third game is its own mess.

8 Better: 3D Dot Game Heroes

A PlayStation 3 exclusive, 3D Dot Game Heroes is almost something of a parody of the original Legend of Zelda, but at the end of the day it becomes very clear the game is more of a love letter. It honors the original Zelda in every way it can, constantly referencing the game. At the same time, it has its own mechanics that keep the game highly addictive.

Character customization, plenty of swords to choose from, and excellent dungeon design, 3D Dot Game Heroes outdoes the majority of Zelda’s 2D catalogue. It’s also incredibly hard, far harder than any Zelda game, which is important to keep in mind before starting it up.

7 So Much Worse: Dark Cloud

Level 5’s first game, Dark Cloud is really, really mediocre. Almost aggressively so. To its credit, its Legend of Zelda connections were more in its marketing than anything else and the game is fairly unique, but Dark Cloud still isn’t a fun playthrough. Thanks to a host of aggressively unfriendly mechanics (thirst, weapon durability, and procedural generation), this is a hard game to go back to.

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Worse yet, despite this being a Level 5 game, the story is a complete and utter mess. The script is a disaster, the localization is even worse, and Dark Cloud 2 is just so much better, that most players will want to drop the first game the moment they hit their first roadblock. Which they certainly will.

6 Better: Dark Cloud 2

What a comeback story. Dark Cloud may be a poor example of an early PS2 game, but Dark Cloud 2 is still one of the best games on the system and a much better attempt at not only capturing Zelda’s magic, but twisting it into something wholly unique. Called Dark Chronicle elsewhere, this is a game that’s easy to sink a lot of time into.

Between weapon crafting, weapon leveling, the city building, dungeon crawling, fishing, photography, and mini-games, Dark Chronicle really nails that sense of exploration the better Legend of Zelda games share. With more experience, Level 5 also presents a much stronger narrative for Dark Chronicle.

5 So Much Worse: Star Fox Adventures

The beginning of the end for Rare, Star Fox Adventures was a misguided attempt at giving the GameCube a 3D Zelda, a new Star Fox game, and some high quality Rare content. It’s not great. Not too bad, granted, but the game has no real identity between its unique Dinosaur Planet, a gameplay style that does not suit its own franchise, and a distinct lack of almost anything Star Fox.

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It’s almost baffling Nintendo would allow Rare to develop a game so derivative of The Legend of Zelda  and to then slap the Star Fox moniker on it. It’s frankly baffling. Doubly so since the Star Fox Adventures' few Arwing sections aren’t bad and would have made for a much better game.

4 Better: Final Fantasy Adventure

Released as Seiken Densetsu in Japan, it seems almost unfair to call Final Fantasy Adventure a Zelda clone, but it does share a decent bit of mechanical and conceptual similarities with both The Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past. That said, you most likely won’t see any connections on a first playthrough, if only because of how well the game asserts its own identity.

An incredibly fast-paced action RPG where death is quick and levels are quicker, Final Fantasy Adventure manages to tell a surprisingly emotional story with plenty of great combat throughout. The puzzles aren’t half as good as in The Legend of Zelda, but they’re pretty advanced for their time, and the music is out of this world.

3 So Much Worse: Songbringer

This has been a great generation for indie games as a whole, but it’s also seen plenty of indies try to get by on a mix of procedural generation and homage. Songbringer is the original Zelda with procedural generation thrown into the mix and it’s a total mess. The combat’s already lackluster, but the overworld is just not fun to explore.

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Hyrule was a geographically realized world with thoughtful level design. Procedural generation cannot pull that off by any means necessary and Songbringer ends up having some truly dreadful level design as a result. It’s a cute idea in theory, but it’s one that was pursued very poorly.

2 Better: Ōkami

The game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess should have been, Ōkami is a must-play for everyone even remotely interested in video games. Amazing puzzles, level design, bosses, art, combat — it’s all here. Ōkami blows the majority of Zelda titles out of the water and it frankly isn’t close.

Of course, Ōkami as a series isn’t even half as good as The Legend of Zelda, but this one game is just a masterpiece. You’d be hard-pressed to find any real flaws in Ōkami. The slower pace may not mesh with everyone right away, but it only bolsters an already luscious experience.

1 So Much Worse: Alundra 2

The original Alundra was released before Ocarina of Time and therefore couldn’t capitalize on any concepts it brought to the table. Even then, though, the game was clearly designed to fill a 2D niche that had been left empty for quite a long time. Naturally, a sequel should only follow up on that notion, but Alundra 2 released after Ocarina and it shows.

Now 3D, Alundra 2 is much lighter and plays like a bastardized version of what you’d expect 3D Zelda to play like. It’s worse than the first game in just about every way imaginable, failing to capture any of the magic of either its predecessor or The Legend of Zelda. It’s no wonder Alundra 3 never came to be.

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